By Ian Fraser Published: Mail on Sunday (Scottish edition) Date: 17 August 2014 RBS’s decision to scrap the three-letter acronym it has used for eleven years and assert its heritage by readopting the Royal Bank of Scotland title and refurbishing branches with a “heather, tartan and tweed” theme will get the nation thinking. Is this […]

By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: 8 June 2014 Ian Fraser’s new book, Shredded – Inside RBS: the Bank that Broke Britain, has been acclaimed as the definitive account of the crisis. Here he reflects on the 13 things he learned along the long, hard road to publication (1) Fred the Shred was not […]

June 5th, 2014 (updated June 6th, 2014) It has been nearly two years in the making, but Shredded: Inside RBS The Bank That Broke Britain was published by Birlinn today. It’s a look at the Icarus-like ascent of RBS under former chartered accountant Fred “The Shred” Goodwin, and examines many aspects of the bank’s spectacular rise […]

By Ian Fraser Published: The Herald Date: 21 May 2014 In an unprecedented clash between two of the UK’s biggest banks, Lloyds Banking Group is suing government owned Royal Bank of Scotland over its “misleading” £12 billion rights issue. In what is seen as the first American-style class action to hit the English courts Lloyds – […]

By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: 27 April 2014 A third of the 12,000 plus individuals who have signed up to sue the Royal Bank of Scotland over its “misleading” £12.3 billion 2008 rights issue are current or former members of staff at the bank. RBoS Shareholders’ Action Group, the largest of the investor […]

April 2nd, 2014 (minor edits to 4th paragraph and new headline, April 22nd, 2014) Investors wishing to join the class action lawsuits against the Royal Bank of Scotland over its “misleading” April 2008 rights issue have until Thursday, 15 May 2014 to decide whether to proceed. The cut-off point was laid down by the judge […]

By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: 12 January 2014 The investor group suing Royal Bank of Scotland in the High Court in London has recruited five former executives to act as witnesses in its £4.3 billion group litigation order against the state-rescued institution, the Sunday Herald can reveal. The former insiders who have agreed […]

By Ian Fraser Published: Daily Record Date: June 13th, 2013 Stephen Hester’s five years at the helm of Royal Bank of Scotland were nothing if not tumultuous. Under his predecessor, Fred Goodwin, retail banking operations were used as a cash cow to fund overseas expansion, staff were demoralised by a regime of fear, and many […]

By Ian Fraser Published: Yorkshire Post Date: March 1st, 2013 AS the Royal Bank of Scotland boss Stephen Hester toured the broadcasters’ studios yesterday, he kept repeating the same mantras. He is “fixing RBS”; it is going from an “okay company” to being a “really good bank”; and “RBS will be ready to be privatised […]

By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: November 25th, 2012 Fund managers who invested their customers’ money in Royal Bank of Scotland’s disastrous £12 billion rights issue in 2008 but who failed to alert clients to the existence of a shareholder-led legal action against the bank, are vulnerable to being sued by their clients, according […]